This is a beautiful piece someone sent me long ago in a Winter Solstice Card.  I have no idea who wrote it, and would love to know.  I’ve inserted copies myself into Yule cards and used it in Yule rituals, where it’s worked wonderfully well.

But it takes a bit of memorizing


Sol Invictus


The sun is a golden egg.

The sun is the yolk of
the egg.

The sun is the Ostara
egg, a cosmic egg, the egg of beginning

The sun is the ring of
Solomon

The sun is the luminous
bull of great horns goring the darkness

The sun is a golden
haired lion

The sun is a shaman, a
shape-shifter, a magician of hairy and furry and wondrous parts

The sun disguises itself
as a hog, a world boar, a goat, a ram

The sun is an elephant
trapped in a net of night

The sun hides itself in the
wolf-skin of night

The sun takes the moon as
his mistress of dreaming

The sun is the red cock
of morning, the cock with the golden crest, the cock with the jewel crowing

The sun is a winged horse

The sun is a hawk with
iron claws

The sun is an eagle with
far-staring eyes

The sun is a lion-headed
bird

The sun disguises itself
as a cuckoo and sits on the scepter of Hera

The sun is a crested lark

The sun is a quail,
crying out against the moon who lures him into the darkness of night, into the
cold of winter

The sun is called
Lohengrin

The sun is honored with
fire, holy fire

The sun acknowledges the
sacredness of lizards and fireflies

The sun takes as a bride
the aurora of morning for whom the moon sews a wedding robe with a thread that
will not break

The sun is king of the
hill, the great mathematician of the year, the phoenix dying and being reborn
again, always and forever

The sun is a crab
retracing its steps backwards to winter

The sun sleeps in the
house of Capricorn

The sun breaks its iron
cradle and leaps out on the back of day, startling the dreams of animals and
children

The sun is free and
laughing and dancing the birthday gavotte on the solstice day in December

Felix natalis

O sol invictus

Felix natalis

O holy sun

Felix natalis

Beloved sun

Felix natalis, felix natalis,
felix natalis


More from Beliefnet and our partners